Exit Strategy

by Martha Wells

  I didn’t like it.

  I went back into the room with a bed and a display surface and locked the door. An hour later, Ratthi tapped my feed and sent, We set up a little network. I hope it helps.

  I cautiously initiated a search. They had put cameras in all the suite lounges and connecting hallways, so I could see everything.

  I had a complex emotional reaction. A whole new burst of neural connections blossomed. Oh right, I often have complex emotional reactions which I can’t easily interpret.

  I made adjustments to the code to make sure no one could hack the new network from outside. Then I unlocked my door.

  Mensah had quarters in another part of the station, used for when she was here on government business, and a large portion of her family had come up to see her and be excited about the fact that she wasn’t dead. Pin-Lee, Ratthi, and Gurathin had to stay on the station for now because there were going to be a lot of meetings in the government offices in the admin center next door. Meet ings about GrayCris and the bond company and what happened with Palisade.

  Twelve hours after we arrived, Arada and Overse came to see everyone. By that point I was able to access my archive on them and remember: (1) they were clients (2) they were a couple (3) they liked each other and (4) they liked me. I watched them with my local camera network for twenty-three minutes and then came out of my room to let them talk to me. The humans seemed happy about that.

  Arada didn’t hug me, though she bounced up and down and waved her arms. Thirteen hours later, after she had talked with the others, she said to me, “In a few months, we’re going on a small assessment survey. It’s an independent site outside the Corporation Rim, so there wouldn’t be any bond company or … We wouldn’t have to worry about that. We’d like you to come along to keep us from getting killed. I don’t know what you’d like in exchange—”

  “It likes hard currency cards,” Gurathin said. I looked at him. He said, “I’ll take the obscene gesture as given.”

  “You’ll have to wait to discuss it,” Pin-Lee told them. “It can’t enter into any contractual agreements until it completes its memory rebuild.”

  “Why?” I asked her. “Because my owner says so?”

  “No, asshole,” Pin-Lee said. “Because I’m your legal counsel.”

  After that conversation, after the others had gone to sleep, Pin-Lee came back to my room and picked up my bag. (Once I remembered it existed, I’d checked it and found Wilken and Gerth’s ID markers and the currency cards I hadn’t used yet were still there.) Pin-Lee said, “This is technically illegal, so don’t tell anybody,” and put three new ID markers and currency cards into my bag. She said, “This is just some insurance if anything goes sideways. Gurathin made the IDs, and these are cards Ratthi and I got for the trip to TranRollinHyfa, but didn’t use. Preservation doesn’t have an internal currency economy and these are drawn from the citizens’ travel fund.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “Because I want you to know we’re serious, that you’re not some kind of prisoner or pet or whatever it is you think.” And then she stomped out.

  When humans I didn’t know came to visit, I hid back in my room. I spent a lot of time there anyway, even when not hiding, because the rebuild process was taking up a lot of my resources. Just lying on the bed with local media playing on the display surface was all I could do for three to four hour periods.

  Twenty-nine hours after arrival, Ratthi came to get me because a newsburst was on the big display surface in the suite’s main lounge area and everyone was watching it. Mensah was there, too. The newsburst had a lot of interviews with various humans, but basically it said that the bond company was still mad about the attack on the gunship and had declared war on GrayCris. (Even in my current state, I knew that was not going to turn out well for GrayCris.) Also, a lot of other corporations and political entities were now involved, because of all the information about GrayCris’ past history of illegal collection of strange synthetics. The newsburst referred to the data I’d brought from Milu and played sections of Wilken and Gerth’s blackmail memory clip, which included video of GrayCris agents and executives in possession of illegal alien remnants. (I watched a little media in background during that part, since I’d already seen the whole clip.)

  “We’re out of it now,” Gurathin said, and made a throwing gesture at the display surface. “They can tear each other apart.”

  “We’re never out of it while we have to interact with the corporates,” Mensah said. “But this is a relief.”

  Arada said, “What do you think, SecUnit?”

  The rebuild process was increasing in speed again, and I suddenly didn’t have any space left for talking to humans. I got up and went back to my room.

  * * *

  Rebuild Process Complete at Cognition Level 100 percent

  * * *

  At thirty-seven hours since arrival, I sat up. I said, aloud, “That was stupid.” Everything was clear, sharp. Note to self, never, ever jump into a gunship with a bot pilot and fight off a construct Attacker code again. You almost deleted yourself, Murderbot.

  I climbed off the bed and did a brief sweep of the suite via my cameras. Most of the humans had gone to a dinner event somewhere. Overse and Arada were asleep in Pin-Lee’s room, and Gurathin was sitting up in his room reading academic journals in the feed.

  I got my bag, found my jacket and boots and put them on, and slipped out of the suite.

  * * *

  The station’s security was more like Milu: concentrated in areas where something might actually go wrong, and not in occupation spaces or the station mall. They had weapon scanners concentrated around the docks, but hardly any drones, and most of those were being used for small goods deliveries. A lot of effort had gone into the mall area, with rounded structures made to look like they were built out of wood, and a lot of real plants instead of holos, mosaic tiles set into the deck depicting flora and fauna from the planets in the system, with attached tags in the feed providing information about each one. As a distraction for the humans walking around me, they worked great. Everyone was looking down for the tiles or reading the feed, and not noticing stray wandering SecUnits.

  None of the local newsfeeds that Ratthi and Pin-Lee and the others watched had said that I was here, and while the newsbursts carried in from the Corporation Rim said Dr. Mensah’s SecUnit had been involved in the escape from TranRollinHyfa, I’d done such a good job cutting myself out of security video, all they had was the old pre-configuration change image from Port FreeCommerce. That was one big thing I didn’t have to worry about.

  The other thing that was different about this station mall was that feed advertising was restricted by a distance limit, so the displays were mostly inside the stores. Which were weird. From what I could see in the feed, there were two financial systems, one using hard currency for travelers, and a barter-based system for local citizens.

  Fortunately the booking kiosks took hard currency cards.

  I’d checked the transit schedules and had time to kill, so I went to a section of the station mall that was listed as a “Welcome Center.” I had never seen anything like it in a port before, but then, I’d never looked, so maybe I’d just missed it. It had kiosks and information displays about all the planets and stations in the Preservation Alliance. A dome overhead duplicated sky views from various Preservation planets, and actual humans and augmented humans stood around to answer questions for humans who wanted to live here. Trying to avoid them, I walked into what I thought was a shop that turned out to be a theater.

  I’d never seen a theater in real life before, just on shows in the entertainment media. The story was shown in holo, in the middle of the room, with big comfortable seats all around it, not too close to each other. I know it was just a giant display surface, but still. This one had a three-hour holo show about how the first colonists had arrived. Basically the long version of what Ratthi and Mensah had told me, about the big ship fleeing the doomed colony. It wa
s a good story, even if the tone was a little dry.

  After it was over, I went back to the embarkation zone and checked the activity around the transports I’d flagged. Still no increased security presence.

  I bought passage with one of Pin-Lee’s cards and found a transient waiting area with actual couches and chairs where I could pretend to sleep while watching media and monitoring the station security feed. Still nothing.

  My transport called for boarding, and I didn’t get on.

  I checked the station directory and found Mensah had an office in the government admin block in the same section as the Port Authority. Her private quarters was listed, too. (Which is just a bad idea. I know Preservation thinks of itself as some kind of human non-corporate paradise, but let’s be real.) I didn’t want to go to her home anyway, since her family would be there, so I went to the office.

  There was some security monitoring to get past, and three augmented humans who were way too easily distracted by fake feed alerts for routine malfunctions. It was a nice office, with a balcony overlooking the admin plaza area and some big display surfaces. I didn’t touch anything except the couch, which I laid down on and watched episodes for eight hours.

  I had the station feed backburnered, and there were still no security alerts, no unusual activity around the passenger or bot-piloted transports.

  Then I picked up Mensah arriving in the outer foyer with two humans and a small juvenile human, who looked like a miniature version of Mensah. I stood up and waited.

  They walked in and stopped abruptly.

  I said, “It’s me.”

  “Yes, I see that.” Mensah pressed her lips together, hiding her expression, but she didn’t look mad. She glanced back at the other humans, then told me, “Just a moment.”

  While she spoke to them, I stepped out onto the balcony. There was an air barrier protecting it from the plaza two levels below, which was better than nothing, I guess. The plaza had a big mosaic tile pattern with real plants in elaborate abstract sculptures around it. Humans and bots wandered across it on the way to the other port offices. Faint steps on audio told me the small human had followed me out. She stepped up to the railing, frowning curiously at me. She said, “Hello.”

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m your mother’s pet security consultant.”

  She nodded. “I know. She said if I asked you your name, you probably wouldn’t tell me.”

  “She’s right.”

  We stared at each other for ten seconds, then she decided I was serious. She added, “She also said you saved her from a bunch of corporate goons.”

  “She didn’t say ‘goons. ’” It was an archaic word. I knew it without having to look it up because the new series of Adventures in the Free Systems, which was made on one of the other worlds in the Preservation Alliance, had dropped locally twenty hours ago and it had used the word “goons.” I was 93 percent certain that was where Mensah’s small human had picked it up, too.

  “You know what I mean.” She folded her arms. She had clearly expected to get more information out of me and was disappointed this was apparently not going to happen. “You saved her, right?”

  “Yeah. Want to see?”

  She lifted her brows, surprised. “Sure.”

  I’d already pulled my video of the last part of our run through the TRH embarkation zone, the fight with the SecUnits and the Combat SecUnit, and our escape in the shuttle. I did a rapid edit to cut out some of the bloodier close-ups, and then sent it to her feed.

  Her gaze went inward, then a little glassy as she reviewed it. In the tone of a young human who was impressed but trying not to show it, she said, “Wow.”

  “Your mother saved me, too. She shot a SecUnit with a sonic mining drill.”

  She finished the vid and frowned at me again. “So, you’re a SecUnit.” She made a half-shrug gesture I didn’t understand. “Is that … weird?”

  It was a complicated question with a simple answer. “Yes.”

  Mensah came out onto the balcony and pointed firmly toward the seating area back inside the office. Small human waved goodbye and went to sit down. Mensah leaned against the railing next to me and said, “I was afraid you’d left.”

  She kept her gaze on the plaza, so I could look at the side of her face. “I thought about it.”

  She was quiet for twenty seconds, watching the movement in the plaza below. “Have you thought much about what you want to do?”

  “Watch media.”

  She did the lifted eyebrow look which I had on file as meaning: I know you’re trying to be funny but you’re not funny. It was most often aimed at Ratthi and Gurathin. “I think if that was all you wanted to do, you’d be off somewhere doing it, and you’d never have gone to Milu.”

  “I watched a lot of media on the way to Milu.” It wasn’t exactly a counterargument, but I thought it was important data.

  “Gurathin showed me the video you shared with him.” She meant the video of the transport with Ayres and the others. “You were helping those people.”

  “I couldn’t help them. They had a contract labor agreement.”

  I saw from her reaction that she knew exactly what that meant. “It was too late for you to help them, then.” She started to turn toward me, then looked out over the plaza again. “But you wanted to.”

  “I’m programmed to help humans.”

  Eyebrow lift again. “You’re not programmed to watch media.”

  She had a point.

  She continued, “The reason I ask, is that you’ve received a job offer from GoodNightLander Independent.”

  Okay, now that was a surprise. “They want to buy me. I thought I was illegal in the territories they operate in.”

  “It’s illegal to own a SecUnit,” Mensah corrected. “They want to hire someone who may or may not be called Rin, who they suspect is based somewhere in the Preservation Alliance, whose citizenship status will be considered immaterial.” She smiled. “I think that’s how they put it.”

  I still couldn’t believe this. “They want to hire a SecUnit.”

  “They want to hire the person who saved their assessment team from combat bots and contract killers, and they don’t care what that person is.” She glanced at me again. “Also, I’ve been talking to Dr. Bharadwaj and she wants to ask you to consider making your story public. Not to the newsfeed, but as part of a documentary account. There’s been a small movement for a while in the Preservation Alliance to press for full citizenship for constructs and high-level bots. She thinks a full account of your situation, in your own words, could be a great contribution. Even if all you did was agree to release the message you sent to me before you left Port FreeCommerce, as part of a public account of the GrayCris incident, it would help. She’d like to discuss it with you, if you feel it’s something you could consider.”

  Okay, maybe I should have been appalled. It was a terrifying idea. It was a terrifyingly attractive idea. I said, “A documentary on the entertainment feed?”

  Mensah nodded. “Again, there’s no rush about any of this. I just want you to know you already have options here, and I expect you’ll have more offers for your services or advice as a security consultant. And that you have friends here you can discuss things with, whatever you decide to do, or wherever you decide to go.”

  I had options, and I didn’t have to decide right away. Which was good, because I still didn’t know what I wanted.

  But maybe I had a place to be while I figured it out.

  ALSO BY MARTHA WELLS

  THE MURDERBOT DIARIES

  All Systems Red

  Artificial Condition

  Rogue Protocol

  BOOKS OF THE RAKSURA

  The Cloud Roads

  The Serpent Sea

  The Siren Depths

  The Edge of Worlds

  The Harbors of the Sun

  Stories of the Raksura: Volume I (short fiction)

  Stories of the Raksura: Volume II (short fiction)

  THE FALL
OF ILE-RIEN TRILOGY

  The Wizard Hunters

  The Ships of Air

  The Gate of Gods

  STANDALONE ILE-RIEN BOOKS

  The Element of Fire

  The Death of the Necromancer

  Between Worlds: The Collected Ile-Rien and Cineth Stories

  YA NOVELS

  Emilie and the Hollow World

  Emilie and the Sky World

  Blade Singer (with Aaron de Orive)

  TIE-IN NOVELS

  Stargate Atlantis: Reliquary

  Stargate Atlantis: Entanglement

  Star Wars: Razor’s Edge

  City of Bones

  Wheel of the Infinite

  About the Author

  MARTHA WELLS has written many novels, including The Wizard Hunters, Wheel of the Infinite, the Books of the Rakshura series (beginning with The Cloud Roads and ending with The Harbors of the Sun), and the Nebula Award–nominated The Death of the Necromancer, as well as YA fantasy novels, short stories, and nonfiction. The first book in the Murderbot Diaries series— All Systems Red—was a New York Times bestseller, won the Alex, Locus, and Nebula Awards, and is nominated for a Hugo Award. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Also by Martha Wells

  About the Author

  Copyright